General Summary of the Discussion

The Third Meeting of the Coastal Inundation Forecasting Demonstration Project (CIFDP) Steering Group was opened by Co-Chairs of the Group, Drs Don Resio (University of North Florida) and Val Swail (Environment Canada), at 0830 hours on Monday 2 April 2012, in the conference room of the University of North Florida (UNF), Jacksonville, USA. All participants were warmly welcomed by Dr Mark E. Workman, Provost of the UNF, who expressed his satisfaction in hosting this important meeting in the international era at UNF. Dr Workman emphasized the importance of the research and application of meteorology and oceanography to human life, particularly to ensure safety against natural disasters, and applauded the efforts made by the Group and associated programmes..

The Meeting focused on:

Review of ongoing National Sub-Projects in Bangladesh and Dominican Republic, in order to provide advice on their future course of action

Technical recommendations on the conceptual design of a CIFDP system

Review and revision of the Project Concept and the Implementation Plan

The outcome of the meeting also included a recommendation as to the technical development of the CIFDP in the sub-projects. On the last day of the meeting, the Group agreed on decisions relating to the management of the Project Steering Group, including its Terms of Reference and Membership, and on the actions tasked to all members. Details of the discussion are described below.

Bangladesh National Sub-project (CIFDP-B):

Drs Boram Lee (World Meteorological Organization: WMO) and S.H.M. Fakhruddin (Regional Integrated Multi-Hazard Early Warning System for Africa and Asia: RIMES) provided a summary of the activities on the development of the Bangladesh Sub-project, denoted as CIFDP-B. The Group was satisfied with the results of the National Stakeholders Workshop (28 November – 1 December 2011, Dhaka, Bangladesh), where the engaged agencies confirmed the Initial National Agreement, and conducted the initial assessment of the technical capabilities and user requirements (see the final report of the Workshop, JCOMM Technical Report No. 65, at http://www.jcomm.info/CIFDP-BSW).

The Group then reviewed progress in the assessment of the technical capabilities of the national and regional agencies in Bangladesh, presented by Dr. Fakhruddin. The Group appreciated the progress in the assessment of the national technical capabilities, in cooperation with RIMES, and efforts by the National Coordination Team to finalize the Definitive National Agreement (DNA) leading toward Phase 2 of the project. Taking into account the agreed Project Plan for year-1, the PSG requested the National Coordination Team (NCT) in cooperation with RIMES to consolidate the DNA and Year-1 Project Plan as planned. These results, and following progress in Phase 2 should be reviewed in a CIFDP-B Implementation Review Meeting, for which the time should be agreed upon according to the defined CIFDP implementation plan in the 2012 update (continuing and by end 2012, by NCT).

The Group also took note of the ongoing funding proposals and negotiations for CIFDP-B, including those to USAID (by WMO), to KOICA (by WMO), to the Dutch Partnership for Water (by WMO) and to the World Bank (by BMD). The Group agreed on the continuing efforts with input from the PSG, and on the future actions to develop a proposal jointly by BMD, RIMES and WMO (continuing and by end 2012, by WMO, RIMES and NCT).

The Group agreed that RIMES and the Regional Specialized Meteorological Centre (RSMC) for Tropical Cyclone, IMD, as well as technical institutions such as the IIT-D, play important roles in technical development, and requested the NCT to work primarily with RIMES, IIT-D and PSG in implementing the Phase 2 of the project. If required, the Project Plan for CIFDP-B should be revised accordingly. As a starting activity for Phase 2 in this context, the Group recommended that IIT-D and RIMES to work together to explore the feasibility to include the inundation components (wet/dry) in the IIT-D storm surge model (ASAP and by end 2012, by IIT-D and RIMES).

Dominican Republic National Sub-project (CIFDP-DR):

The Group received with appreciation reports by Drs Fidel Perez and Cristina Forbes on the results of the workshops and meetings so far held in the Dominican Republic. The Group was pleased to note that the discussion was under way regarding the initial assessment for national capabilities and requirements / gap analysis, and the project could proceed only when this condition was satisfied. The Group therefore requested the NCT to finalize the analysis and make the results available to the PSG. The Group also emphasized the importance of the institutional agreement in the initiation of the National Sub-Project, and requested the NCT to finalize the Definitive National Agreement, as well as the agreed Terms of Reference and membership, as soon as possible (ASAP, by NCT).

Considering that the main cause of the coastal inundation in coastal zones of the Dominican Republic is hydrological flooding, the Group considered that the responsible national agency for hydrology (Instituto Nacional de Recursos Hidráulicos: INDRHI) should take the leading role in the technical development, in close cooperation with the meteorological agency (ONAMET) for operational forecasting and warning. Also, the Group acknowledged the crucial role of the RSMC (US National Hurricane Center: NHC) in this region to provide forecasting and warning information for Hurricanes and associated storm surges, and therefore requested the NCT to closely work with the NHC throughout the project implementation.

Review Project Concept, Strategy and Implementation Plan:

The Group noted that the following strategy for CIFDP was proposed to the 4th Session of JCOMM (23-31 May 2012, Yeosu, Republic of Korea) for the adoption by the Commission:

The Project would be implemented under each regional/national sub-project, launched for a country that meets the essential requirement for initiating a national agreement between national institutions with relevant responsibilities, and the provisional establishment of a National Coordination Team (NCT) that includes operator(s) of the NMHS;

The Project would be designed based on users’ perspectives and requirements, considering only existing and available open source techniques. Final products of the Demonstration Project should be operated and maintained by a national operational agency which has the responsibility/authority for storm surge warning and flood warning;

The developed procedure/best practice through a sub-project should be applicable to other (neighbouring) countries with common issues and interests, and should be closely linked to and cooperating with related projects and activities, such as the regional Severe Weather Forecasting Demonstration Project (SWFDP) in building a “cascading forecasting process” to produce services for coastal zones.

Taking this into account, the Group reviewed and updated the concept of CIFDP, and its Implementation Plan accordingly (see the results at the links). The revised Implementation Plan was updated as JCOMM Technical Report No. 64. The Group also reaffirmed that a detailed project plan should be developed for each National Sub-project, taking into account the specific requirements and available technologies of each country and region, based on the Implementation Plan as the framework/guidelines (ASAP, by NCT for each sub-project).

Communication, Outreach and Partnership:

The Group agreed to continue and extend its interaction with the respective regional bodies of the WMO Tropical Cyclone Programme, such as the ESCAP/WMO Typhoon Committee (for CIFDP-B), and RA IV Hurricane Committee (for Dominican Republic). This was considered to create synergies, in terms of providing technical components of the WMO regional Storm Surge Watch Scheme (SSWS), and continuous interaction and update for user requirements. This approach can be extended as new National Sub-Project would be initiated in the future.

Continuous interaction was encouraged with other related scientific and technical projects, such as the ESA eSurge (Particularly for CIFDP-B), and UNESCO's near-completion project on North Indian Ocean storm surge forecasting (IIT-D storm surge model upgrade). The interaction and linkage with the WMO Severe Weather Forecasting Demonstration Project (SWFDP) should also continue.

The Group agreed to continuously review and update the Project Poster (to be presented in various scientific fora, including the JCOMM-4 Scientific and Technical Conference, 24-25 May 2012, Yeosu, Korea), and the Project Brochure (ASAP and continuous, by PSG and WMO Secretariat).

General Matters:

Reflecting the recent development of the project, the Group reviewed and revised its Terms of Reference (ToR), as well as the membership. It was agreed that both ToR and membership would be regularly reviewed at each PSG meeting.